2014 honda civic Reviews and News

The Honda Civic is one of the most logical car purchases you can make. It’s relatively inexpensive, has a long-standing reputation for reliability, and gets great gas mileage. For 2014, Honda installed a new continuously variable transmission that further improves the Civic’s efficiency proposition, as it boosts the compact sedan’s EPA ratings by 2 mpg city and 1 mpg combined for an impressive 30/39/33 mpg city/highway/combined.

To test out the CVT’s real-world mpg, we took this 2014 Honda Civic EX-L on a 220-mile test loop from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo, Michigan. On the way there, we stuck to the freeway, and for our drive back, we drove on rural two-lane highways, passed through small towns, and spent some time in rush-hour traffic. We got 37.7 mpg for the loop, which is remarkably close to the 39-mpg highway rating despite the variations in our route.

Like most CVTs, the Civic’s feels like it’s sapping energy from the four-cylinder engine, though. Compared with the 2013 Civic and its five-speed automatic, the CVT-equipped 2014 Honda Civic feels significantly more lethargic even under mild acceleration. This is mostly due to the CVT’s efficiency-minded tuning. It’s reluctant to rev past 3000 or 4000 rpm despite the engine’s 6500-rpm power peak, meaning that the car is unresponsive when merging or passing at higher speeds.

This kind of tuning might seem necessary for achieving high mpg ratings, but some competitors attain similar numbers without sacrificing responsiveness. For instance, the 2014 Mazda 3 s Touring we brought along on the same drive loop achieved nearly the same mileage as the Honda—37.3 mpg—but boasts 41 more hp, 56 more lb-ft of torque, and a much more eager, quick-shifting six-speed automatic transmission. Credit such Mazda Skyactiv technology as direct gas injection; the 2014 Civic’s older port injected four is overdue for an upgrade to a modern Honda Earth Dreams engine.

Still, Honda’s consistent updates to the Civic have kept this car feeling and looking fresh inside and out. It’s comfortable and quiet on the freeway and makes for a near-perfect commuter car thanks to its stellar real-world mpg. It’s only lacking that extra fun-to-drive factor that other compacts like the Mazda 3 provide. Buying the 2014 Honda Civic is as rational a choice as ever. We just wish it were a more exciting one.

Editors I now call colleagues wrote about great sports coupes from the ‘80s and ‘90s -- like the Honda CRX, Nissan 240SX, and Toyota MR2 -- and a generation of young men, like myself, clung to every word. No one intended for us, now grown, to feel like we’d be happier with just-vintage sports coupes than, say, a 2014 Honda Civic Si -- but that’s what happened.

Don’t buy a Craigslist Bimmer

Fellow young men: The 2014 Honda Civic Si is the car you should be driving. “But what about steering feel and wafer-thin A-pillars and throttle bodies attached to cables, not wires?” Don’t matter. Three years ago, my best friend test-drove a Civic Si before buying his 1986 BMW 325es. Today, he’s falling in love with his Civic Si while he waits for one of you to naively answer his Craigslist posting for the Bimmer.

Taking the Si to the track

To make my point, I’m taking a new Si coupe to an open track day at Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, Michigan. For 2014, the Si benefits from better suspension dampers, higher-rate coil springs, and a stiffer rear anti-roll bar. Its high-revving, 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine gets four more hp and lb-ft of torque and is still bolted to a fantastic-feeling six-speed manual transmission. Performance tires are a $200 option, but our coupe came on stock, all-season rubber.

Turning lap after lap after lap

Coming up to a right-hander at the end of a long straight, I’m hard on the brakes and heel-and-toe shift from fourth to third to second gear. I touch the accelerator and balance the Si though the turn. Steering is precise but light, and body roll is noticeable but not stomach-churning. Coming out of the corner, the engine quickly spins to its 7000-rpm redline. I grab the leather-wrapped ball shift knob and fluidly change back into third gear. I turn lap after lap for twenty minutes and put down a best lap time of 2:02, very respectable for this track.

Fun on the road, fun on a road course

The Si is fantastic, on and off of the road course. My three-hour drive home from the track was comfortable and uneventful, which is what you want after a day of high-speed passes and close calls. And on my drive home, I never thought, “Will my car start back up when I stop for gas?” That would’ve bounced around my brain nonstop had I been driving one of those just-vintage sports coupes I’d yearned for as a youngster. And there’s no way I would’ve enjoyed racing one of them around Gingerman as much as I did a 2014 Honda Civic Si coupe.

We’ve reached the fourth day of Automobile Magazine’s 2014 Compact Sedan Comparison, and it hasn’t been easy.

As we explained on Day 1, if you can’t build a great car for $200,000, probably you should just quit trying. It’s actually much harder to build a good $20,000 car with a spacious cabin, everyday comfort and convenience, and thrifty performance without forcing people to turn their wallets inside out to find the last dollar.

These days, the average compact sedan must be as roomy as a Honda Accord from the last decade, deliver an array of features that any high-style Bentley would be happy to offer, and let you sail past the gas pumps besides. We’ve gathered eight of the best compact sedans on the market, and we’re sorting them out by driving all of them at the same time on the same roads. We’ve made our notes, organized our facts, and argued about the results. We hope to find the best compact sedan in America as a result.

On Day 4, we give you some of the arguing, as we present here the notes from the discussion that ensued as we went about choosing the finalists for Day 5.

As the tournament continues, the competition involves less driving and a lot more arguing, as the comments below indicate. It’s not just about whether these compact sedans excel -- because they all do -- but instead it’s about finding the right combination of virtues that meets our expectations.

As the tournament continues, here are the Final Four match-ups:

Kia Forte vs. Mazda 3

Honda Civic vs. Volkswagen Jetta

2014 Kia Forte Vs. 2014 Mazda 3

2014 Kia Forte EX

“I want to mention something that is not this car’s ‘forte,’ ” jokes associate editor David Zenlea, “but I can’t think of one off of the top of my head. Maybe this is a good mark for the Kia.”

“How about its steering?” responds another editor. “Three modes that adjust steering effort? Basically Kia is admitting that it has no idea what’s best for the buyer.”

The Forte, the cheapest car of the bunch, has standard power-folding mirrors, automatic headlights, LED running lights, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, satellite radio, and a rearview camera. Oh, and a 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty. And it needs all of those things to keep buyers from being scared off by the Korean badge on the hood.

Drive the Kia Forte if you eat protein bars for two of your three square meals, wear Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses wherever you go, and listen to one of those EDM songs (or is it just one long song?).

“The previous Forte was abysmal to drive, uncomfortable, and felt like it might fall apart at any given moment,” says associate web editor Jake Holmes. “This one, I never noticed the ride, and that’s a really good thing.”

The infotainment system is simple to operate and looks modern.

You get the feeling that Kia is really trying. Some of the Forte works, some of it doesn’t, but you can see the effort behind it. Note the sliding covers over the USB ports in center console. We’ve seen that only in a small batch of other cars. It’s a sign that the Koreans are minding the details.

2014 Mazda 3i Touring

“I’m not sure the Mazda 3 has a better interior than the Kia Forte, but it feels more expensive,” says West Coast editor Michael Jordan. “You’d only expect to see climate control knobs this nice in a $40,000 car.”

The styling is striking—the front end’s big, wide, gaping mouth is very dramatic, which is novel for this segment—but the Mazda needs to focus a bit more on better forward and rearward visibility.

Associate editor Greg Migliore notes that the Mazda 3 weighs less than 2900 pounds, which is a reminder that Mazda “does it their way.” Deputy editor Joe DeMatio responds, “Can you sing that?”

The 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine is quiet and smooth yet spins up quickly, and what’s best is that it gets more than 40 mpg on the highway.

Drive the Mazda 3 if you eat at Chipotle every week, wear shirts from Blipshift, and already listen to all of the bands scheduled for the music festivals this summer.

Why is there a touchscreen when there’s also a command knob for the infotainment system on the on the center console? Because the software for the control knob sucks: it’s not possible to perform simple tasks like spinning the knob to change the song selection. We hope Mazda sorts this system faster than BMW did with iDrive.

This is a compact car you get into and feel like you’ve been there before. It’s a balanced and sensible package for an enthusiast.

Winner: 2014 Mazda 3i Touring.

The Kia Forte is much improved, but it still can’t beat the formidable Mazda 3. The Mazda 3 moves into the final round.

2013 Honda Civic vs. 2014 Volkswagen Jetta

2013 Honda Civic

Zenlea says, “If a non-car person asked me what to buy, I’d say the Civic. I’d always say the Civic. It would never give them any problems. It’s easy to drive, it’s efficient, and it’s easy to see out of. That’s what most people want.”

Holmes chimes in: “Driving the Civic is like having oatmeal every day for breakfast. You’re not really happy you’re having oatmeal every day, but you’re not really upset about it, either.”

The split dashboard is still the weakest point of this car. It absolutely needs to change, and we can’t imagine why it hasn’t already.

It seems that Honda is using the same cloth for its seats that it used in the early 1990s. “But the seat under that cloth is fantastic,” says DeMatio.

Drive the Honda Civic if you eat kale, wear gently used Toms, and listen to that new artist that no one’s heard of yet (and probably never will).

If you post a Civic for sale on Craigslist, you will sell it in eight minutes. People will be banging on your front door, cash in hand. Even if it’s based on twenty-year-old logic, it shows that people still perceive the Civic to be king of the compact segment.

The Civic shows that once you get it right, stick with it and people will keep coming back.

2014 Volkswagen Jetta

“I’m blown away by how good this car is,” says DeMatio.

“This turbocharged 1.8-liter four-cylinder is much better than the five-cylinder engine,” adds Zenlea.

That said, the Jetta’s lingering reputation for indifferent reliability makes us a bit worried that the new engine is being made in Mexico at an assembly plant that was just a dirt field a year ago.

Drive the Volkswagen Jetta if you eat granola, wear jeans that are snug but don’t reveal too much, and listen to NPR (rock is alright sometimes, but never too loud).

The Jetta requires a buyer who recognizes that there are decades of German automotive engineering behind the badge. This sounds like a cliché, but the German-engineered refinement of the Jetta puts it in a different class of sophistication than all of the other cars in this comparison.

Volkswagen’s leatherette is better than some leather.

“For me, this whole exercise comes down to the Volkswagen Jetta and the Mazda 3,” says deputy editor DeMatio.

Winner: 2014 Volkswagen Jetta SE

The Honda Civic doesn’t feel as modern as the Volkswagen Jetta, and the Jetta moves into the final round.

Check back tomorrow for Day 5 of Automobile Magazine’s 2014 Compact Sedan Comparison Review as the 2014 Mazda 3 faces the 2014 Volkswagen Jetta to determine the best compact sedan in America.

This is Day 3 of Automobile Magazine’s 2014 Compact Sedan Comparison Review, a comparison test that is meant to help you find an affordable, compact, multipurpose sedan that you’d be happy to drive to work, to the pick-up zone at school, or to the big-box store for a weekend errand.

As we noted in our Day 1 introduction, we put together eight of the best compact sedans and drove them at the same time on the same roads. We made our notes and organized our facts. Then we argued about the results.

The way we see it, these are the best compact sedans in America right now. We’ve tried to ensure that our test vehicles represent a useful level of features – nicely equipped, as they say — yet don’t cost too much. Given the practical realities of acquiring so many test vehicles at the same time, they aren’t all priced exactly the same, but we did our best.

The cars we’re testing are the Chevrolet Cruze, Dodge Dart, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Kia Forte, Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, and Volkswagen Jetta. To make our comparisons as direct as possible, we organized a scheme wherein we matched the vehicles in brackets, just as you would see in an athletic tournament (think March Madness). The losers will be knocked out one by one until the winner presents itself.

As we did yesterday on Day 2 of this comparison, we will present an accounting of four vehicles, and two contenders will be eliminated. Tomorrow, on Day 4, we’ll present excerpts from our test notebook on the final four and will select our two finalists. On Friday, for Day 5, the two finalists will go head to head, and we will declare a winner.

Today’s match-ups:

2014 Chevrolet Cruze vs. 2014 Volkswagen Jetta

2013 Honda Civic vs. 2014 Toyota Corolla

2014 Chevrolet Cruze vs. 2014 Volkswagen Jetta

2014 Chevrolet Cruze 1LT

PRICE AS TESTED: $23,940
When the Chevrolet Cruze first appeared as a 2009 model, it knocked us out. Compared with the small, coarse sedans that Chevrolet had produced dating back to the Cavalier (and even the Vega of the 1970s before that), this car seemed like a miracle of international breeding, combining the best of a European chassis, a Korean drivetrain, and American styling, not to mention American development and manufacture. But, tough luck, the Ford Focus stole the spotlight.

Nevertheless, the Cruze has turned things around for Chevrolet in the compact sedan segment, and the appearance of the 2014 Cruze diesel shows how serious General Motors is about this small car. We have liked the Cruze in general because it handles so well (really), delivers such good fuel economy (really), and makes so many features available for so little money (really).

Compared with the other sedans in our comparison, the 2014 Cruze 1LT aspires to be a large car, not a small one. It wants to be refined and sophisticated, a Chevy that has been to charm school.

More than you expect

When you put the 2014 Chevrolet Cruze next to the 2014 Volkswagen Jetta, there’s more to it than you might expect. There’s more to the styling, that’s for sure, although we’d argue that Chevy’s corporate twin-grille look makes it seem as if there are about three grilles too many. More surprising is the sheer size of the Cruze. It measures 181.0 inches in overall length on a wheelbase of 105.7 inches and has a total passenger volume is 95 cubic feet. Front-seat passengers get most of the benefit, with 42.3 inches of legroom; rear-seat passengers get 35.4. (Probably this is the right proportion, since kids will be the ones to occupy the back seat most often.)

The interior presentation is pretty stylish in terms of architecture, but the execution depends on the model that you pick. This particular test car didn’t make us feel particularly charmed, and we picked it apart as a result. The short bottom cushions of the front seats made us feel as if we were in a small car, not a large one. The array of electronic features and connectivity options was pretty good, but most of us couldn’t get along with the Chevrolet MyLink interface, as the lack of haptic feedback made the system feel unresponsive and clumsy, no matter how quickly the electrons raced around.

Less than the big car we were promised

As compact sedans go, the Cruze actually feels sporty rather than big, and its lively responses and balance in the corners set it apart from most of the competition. If you set the Focus as a standard, the Cruze’s suspension calibration helps it feel better isolated from cracked pavement even as it delivers a reassuring balance of grip from the front and rear tires in the corners.

For all this, however, we didn’t get the big car benefits that we hoped for from this $23,540 Cruze 1LT. We could hear the road too well even through the flaccid tires, and the ride never delivered the gracefulness that we to find in any car, large or small. The 138-hp, turbocharged 1.4-liter engine felt coarse at anything other than cruising speed, perhaps because the slow-shifting, six-speed automatic transmission seemed to conspire against performance. The powertrain seems meant for freeway cruising, where the engine’s 148 lb-ft of torque proves adequate. This powertrain is EPA rated at 26 mpg city/38 mpg highway.

The 2014 Chevrolet Cruze didn’t make any enemies during our drive to Kalamazoo and home again, but neither did it make any friends. –Michael Jordan

2014 Volkswagen Jetta SE

PRICE AS TESTED: $23,985
When the 2011 Volkswagen Jetta came ashore from Germany, it promised both more and less. Its stretched exterior dimensions promised more interior passenger space than the Jetta of the previous generation, and a stripped-down complement of features and trim (plus the promise of U.S.-based manufacture in Tennessee), meant a lower price. Sadly, we felt that lowering the bottom line resulted in less car, as the Jetta no longer drove with the European spirit that had formerly made it stand out from its competitors.

But three years along, the 2014 Volkswagen Jetta seems like a different proposition. The new 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder makes this car feel far more powerful than you might expect from 170 hp and 184 lb-ft of torque. It is mated to a six-speed automatic transmission and delivers an EPA-rated 25 mpg city/36 mpg highway. (Oddly enough, this is better fuel economy than you can get from the 115-hp, normally aspirated, 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine.)

Ach, it looks so German

Compared with some of the smaller, snappy-looking sedans in our test group, the 2014 Jetta comes across as big and square-rigged, more like the mid-size VW Passat than an affordable compact sedan. When the bodywork is stripped of its adornment, this is not such a good thing, as the Jetta looks like something that you might find at a taxi stand in Frankfurt. Fortunately, Volkswagen of America has backed off some of visual austerity (or maybe we’re just getting used to it) in this $23,985 Volkswagen Jetta SE (with connectivity and sunroof).

On the other hand, there are some advantages to looking like a taxi, because the VW Jetta feels very spacious when you’re behind the wheel. Partly this is because the passengers are packaged fairly upright, as the car’s overall height of 57.2 inches suggests. Partly this is because rear-seat passengers have 38.1 inches of legroom. And partly this is because the car is pretty big, offering 94.1 cubic feet of interior passenger volume.

But then when you look at the largely unadorned dashboard, you’re right back there in taxi-land. That said, VW has made some strides in its array of features for electronic connectivity, and indeed the connector for the MDI cable has at long last made its way from the glovebox to the center console.

And it drives German, too

Now that the former five-cylinder engine has been replaced by the turbocharged four-cylinder, the drivetrain feels smoother than before, and the Jetta cruises effortlessly on the highway. Strangely, the engine feels like a diesel, because the six-speed automatic has been programmed to shift smoothly (although slowly) to ride the wave of torque at low rpm. It even sounds a bit like a diesel, thanks to a resonator box behind the dash that enhances engine sounds from this otherwise very quiet car.

The Jetta rides and handles like a big car. A wheelbase of 104.4 inches delivers reassuring straightline stability, and the long-travel suspension smoothly strokes up and down over the bumps in the road. There’s plenty of body roll in the corners, yet there’s never a loss in composure. Oddly enough, the multi-link independent suspension helps the car respond to steering inputs with more liveliness, and you don’t mind the new electric-assist steering system at all.

When it comes to compact sedans, there are small, sporty ones and big, comfortable ones, even though this is frequently a matter of tuning rather than simply the car’s physical dimensions. The 2014 Volkswagen Jetta is a big, comfortable one, and we prefer the way it goes about its business compared with the Chevrolet Cruze LT1, which has similar aspirations. – Michael Jordan

Winner: 2014 Volkswagen Jetta

2013 Honda Civic vs. 2014 Toyota Corolla

2013 Honda Civic EX

PRICE AS TESTED: $21,605
Everyone knows about the Honda Civic. When you’re behind the wheel, the view seems familiar, since Honda has carefully formatted the driving position to make the car as easy and natural to drive as possible. You know that you’ll get where you’re going with great fuel economy along the way. This is what makes the Civic the segment’s bestselling car year after year, including 2013. Recommend a Civic to someone and there’s never a question about it; they just give you a thumbs-up and set off for the nearest Honda dealer.

Such trustworthiness has its downside, though. When Honda tries to change the Civic, people resist. After the introduction of the current-generation Civic for 2012, a kind of scandal brewed when Honda enthusiasts worried that the car’s presentation had been compromised in the name of a cheaper price. Honda responded quickly, and the 2013 Civic sedan incorporated not only nicer interior trim but also acoustically insulated glass for the windshield and front windows, higher quality dampers, and a chassis reinforced to withstand new federal standards for crashworthiness. Enthusiasts were satisfied.

Déjà vu all over again

For better or worse, climbing into the Civic is like traveling back in time. Honda’s design maxim has long been “Man Maximum, Machine Minimum.” So it’s no surprise that the Civic sedan feels roomier than any other car in this comparison, even though its interior passenger volume of 94.6 cubic feet is much the same as its rivals. It’s remarkably easy to see the road from the driver’s seat, which is quite an accomplishment in an era of demanding crash standards that create thick roof pillars and thick doors. Thanks to a perfectly flat floor, even an adult who forgets to call shotgun and is exiled to the back seat can ride in relative comfort.

All this good design comes with hardly a lick of style, though. Even after the 2013 interior makeover, the plastic surfaces still look a lot like, well, plastic. The driver’s seat is one of the most comfortable in the test but wears cheap-looking fabric that, according to one of us “screams 1993.” Most important, the era of the Apple iPhone seems to have passed by the Civic, whose digital instrument panel appears to have been inspired by an Atari video-game console of the 1980s. None of us could get comfortable with the two-tier display, which always seems to obscure the speedometer readout behind the rim of the steering wheel, no matter how tall or short you might be.

Transcendental meditation at 65 mph

The Civic remains one of the easiest cars to drive in the compact class, but it has lost much of the zippiness that import tuners loved in the 1980s and ’90s. The 143-hp 1.8-liter four-cylinder sings smoothly at any rpm. The 2013 Civic we drove still had a five-speed automatic, but it doesn’t matter—the Civic cruises quietly on the highway and achieves 32 mpg, combined. (The 2014 Civic now uses a CVT, which improves to 33 mpg combined).

The steering is sharp and quick for effortless around-town maneuvering, but it doesn’t offer much feedback. The ride from the Civic with its 105.1-inch wheelbase is surprisingly supple for a Honda, yet this isn’t a lively car -- we sometimes found ourselves zoning out behind the wheel. Still, we’re mature enough to realize most of the people who buy compact cars are not enthusiasts. The $21,605 Honda Civic EX is perfect for most of them, as it has been for decades. As West Coast editor Michael Jordan says, “This car still expresses all the Honda values – simplicity, reliability, fuel economy.” He’s so old that he remembers when the Civic was invented, so probably he should know. – David Zenlea

2014 Toyota Corolla S Plus

PRICE AS TESTED: $22,870
Akio Toyoda, the CEO of Toyota Motor Company, has talked a lot about making mainstream cars more exciting and youthful. Sounds great to us, since we’re the crowd that believes in “No Boring Cars.”

The 2014 Corolla promises newness, including a new look inside and out, a roomier passenger package, a more fuel-efficient powertrain, and a livelier personality with some fizz. At the same time, the Corolla is also a car with traditional values – QDR, or quality, durability and reliability. This is the eleventh generation of this nameplate, and it celebrates more than 40 million Corollas sold since 1966. Some 1.1 million versions of the Corolla are built around the world every year, including in a new U.S. assembly plant in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Altogether, this business of making compact sedans reminds us of the cola wars; the repackaging of a familiar formula for a new generation. But whereas Honda has distilled the Civic to its essence, like Coca-Cola in a classic glass bottle, the 2014 Toyota Corolla tastes a bit like a can of New Coke.

Déjà vu all over again, but not in a good way

The first word that comes to mind in describing the new 2014 Corolla is “confused.” The exterior design has lots of overdone details, but the basics are bland. Meanwhile, the interior design architecture is a mess of randomly intersecting, cheap-looking plastics. “The door panels have, like, fifty different lines,” observed associate web editor Jake Holmes.

Still, there are some nice elements in the interior, notably in Corolla models with the more expensive trim, such as our test car. One of us raved about the flat, horizontal instrument panel, and a few editors liked the yellow stitching on the seats. Nevertheless, these elements don’t coalesce into an attractive whole, and the Corolla looks conspicuously old, not new. “How did all this get past the final design committee?” wondered deputy editor Joe DeMatio.

Really, they meant well

Fortunately, somewhere under all of this is a pretty good small car, now with a wheelbase stretched to 106.3 inches to afford an impressive 97.5 cubic feet of passenger volume, including 41.4 inches of rear-seat legroom. The backseat is roomy and easy to climb into. Slim A-pillars provide excellent forward visibility.

The engineers probably intended excitement. The CVT has been electronically calibrated to do a good impression of a seven-speed automatic, and this Corolla S Plus even has shift paddles on the steering wheel. But there’s only so much the transmission can do with the 1.8-liter four-cylinder’s anemic 132 hp and 128 lb-ft of torque. As the noisy protests from the CVT make clear every time you get serious about acceleration, the mission here is fuel efficiency, not fizz. At least the Corolla S Plus delivers efficiency with 29 mpg city/39 mpg highway.

Entry-level versions of the Corolla don’t aspire to much, but this $22,870 Corolla S Plus adds rear disc brakes and 17-inch wheels, so it’s trying. Sadly, the combination of a torsion-beam rear suspension and 45-series tires noticeably compromises comfort, the suspension calibration feels floppy, and the electric-assist steering requires lots of attention to keep the car from wandering. Asking the engine to work hard just seems wrong, even with just 2865 pounds to pull. “I don't get the sense that I'm in control of the car,” said Jake Holmes. “It’s all over the road,” added road test editor Christopher Nelson.

Time has caught up with the Toyota Corolla. The others cars in this comparison are no longer pushovers that can offer only tasteless generic-brand flavor. These days, everyone has got fizz. The Toyota Corolla takes a half-hearted stab at repackaging its familiar formula and fails to deliver.—David Zenlea

Winner: 2013 Honda Civic

If you can’t build a good car for $200,000, probably you should just quit trying. It’s actually much harder to build a great $20,000 car, one with a spacious cabin, everyday comfort and convenience, plus thrifty performance, all without forcing people to turn their wallets inside out to find the last dollar. Really, it’s much easier to build a Bentley than a simple compact sedan.

These days, the average compact sedan must be as roomy as a Honda Accord from the last decade, deliver an array of features that any high-style Bentley would be happy to offer, and let you sail past the gas pumps. You can get a stripped-down compact sedan with a washable interior and funky steel wheels if you want, but you can also slide into a compact sedan equipped with voice-activated features, an array of active safety measures, and a chassis agile enough to make the drive to the store feel like a trip to France.

In fact, compact sedans are getting so uniformly good that it’s harder than ever to pick out the best. Nevertheless, Automobile Magazine’s comparison review of the best compact sedans in America will lead you to the final answer. Although some blood was spilled in the process, we have begun our compact sedan comparison by selecting eight cars that are making news in the marketplace right now: Chevrolet Cruze, Dodge Dart, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Kia Forte, Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, and Volkswagen Jetta.

Over the next five days, we’ll compare and contrast these cars in our own, unique bracket-style format and then present the winner.

Compact sedans, Automobile Magazine-style

Our comparison begins with a broad selection of compact sedans, which we define as five-passenger, four-door vehicles priced within hailing distance of $20,000. Such cars are meant to be driven to work, pick up kids from school, run errands, and occasionally make cross-country trips on the open road. They are multipurpose vehicles in a convenient size and are affordably priced. For some households, it is a second vehicle, but for many it is the only car at the curb.

These eight finalists represent the best aspects of the category, whether that means packaging efficiency, simple drivability, or electronic connectivity. By choosing one winner, we hope not only to define the current state of the compact sedan in America but also the character that people who read Automobile Magazine want in a practical, everyday compact car.

Just as you’d expect, we’ve picked models with thrifty engines, a useful array of convenience and safety features, and a spark of personality.

Compact sedans, bracket-style

We can’t pretend to be the average buyer, because, well, that would be impossible. Just like you, we are who we are. If you want complete objectivity unconfused by education, enthusiasm, experience, and just plain good taste, well, good luck to you.

We’ve again based our comparisons on bracket-style, head-to-head matchups, just as we did with our comparison of mid-size sedans. We’re not going to dumb down the process into some kind of SAT test, where like geeks we carefully add up the points scored in a thousand little categories of performance. When you do that, you reward broad-based mediocrity, not excellence. And at Automobile Magazine, we’re all about excellence.

We think the question of choice is personal and powerful, and a one-to-one confrontation between vehicles reveals character in a way that giant test groups do not.

Driving around pointlessly

Every car usually has a place to go, but when it comes to compact sedans, the destinations vary from the big old superstore to the nearest freeway on-ramp. So we didn’t overthink our route selection and simply headed to Kalamazoo, Michigan, from our editorial office in Ann Arbor. We took the back way there, running through fallow cornfields on the two-lane roads of America and then hammered home on the concrete slabs of Interstate 94.

As we’ve done in the past, we made our lunch stop at one of the local brew pubs for which Kalamazoo is known these days, and once again we picked Bell’s Brewery Eccentric Café. Naturally, no actual brew for us (rats!), but we did enjoy a selection of the usual organic stuff that you find in a college town, much of which involved bread, cheese, and potatoes. Ah, well, Kalamazoo is not exactly the Paris of western Michigan.

The map of the road ahead

Just like any road trip, it will take a while before this comparison test reaches its destination.

For Day 2 and Day 3 of Automobile Magazine’s compact sedan comparison, there will be head-to-head matchups, with four vehicles involved each day. On Day 4, we’ll sum up some of what we’ve learned in our testing with excerpts from our big book of notes. On Day 5, we’ll stage the final head-to-head comparison and determine the winner.

New For 2014

The Civic has undergone many updates in recent years, including a freshening that arrived less than a year ago. Changes for the 2014 Honda Civic are minor.

Vehicle Summary

The Honda Civic has long been one of the most well-regarded compact cars sold in America. The sales charts have reflected that, as Civic customers are among the most loyal in the industry. However, Honda stubbed its toe with the redesign of the most recent generation, launching a 2012 model that drew considerable criticism for its bland styling and apparent cost-cutting. Honda hastily spruced things up, rushing a redesign with nicer materials and more features into the market by late 2012. Despite that speed bump, the Civic has remained a popular car even in the face of fresh competition from Hyundai, Ford, and Toyota.

Overview

The 2014 Honda Civic is available as a coupe and a sedan. Either body style can be equipped with a 1.8-liter engine with 140 hp and 128 lb-ft of torque mated with five-speed automatic or manual gearboxes. The front-wheel-drive car seats five. Honda also sells a fuel-sipping hybrid model that gets up to 44 mpg in city and highway driving. An HF version improves fuel economy in the conventional four-cylinder, thanks to aerodynamic enhancements that help it notch 29 mpg in city driving and 41 mpg on the highway. At the other end of the spectrum is the 201-hp performance-oriented Si variant geared toward enthusiasts.

The recent redesign gives the 2014 Honda Civic a slightly more upscale look while maintaining its mainstream appeal. It borrows some cues from the Accord, most noticeably in the grille. The wheels, hood, trunk lid, and taillights are also new. The interior has the most important updates, including to the color scheme, materials, and graining. Even the upholstery and vents are redone. This is in sharp contrast to the 2012 model, which was fashioned during the recession when automakers were cutting back. None of the latest changes are major, but the interior looks better and is now on par with the other offerings in this class.

The 2014 Honda Civic is also stiffer and has more connected steering, a nod to Honda enthusiasts who thought the 2012 model was too soft. Meanwhile, more sound-deadening materials and acoustic glass give the Civic a more refined nature. The Civic is outfitted with added standard equipment, including a rear back-up camera.

The Civic has always been known as safe, reliable and fuel-efficient transportation, and the 2014 model is no exception.

You'll like:

Good fuel economy

Earns high marks from safety groups

Affordable

You won't like:

Four-cylinder is not quick

Transmissions only have five speeds

Some competitors' products seem fresher

Key Competitors

The Honda Civic maintained its lead over the Toyota Corolla in compact car segment sales in September. Honda sold 22,263 Civic sedans and coupes to Toyota’s 20,530 sedans in September. With 18,848 units sold, the Hyundai Elantra climbed one spot to finish third.

After falling behind the Toyota Corolla in July, the Honda Civic again retakes the compact sales lead in August. Honda sold 34,032 Civic sedans and coupes in August compared to 33,088 units of the Corolla sedan. With 23,435 units sold, the Chevrolet Cruze gained one spot to finish third.

The Toyota Corolla retook the number-one sales spot from the Honda Civic this past month, selling 30,883 units to the Civic's 30,038. The Hyundai Elantra again came in third place, with sales of 22,213, but improved its performance from last month.

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Safety

Sound & Entertainment

Warranty

Vehicle

36,000 miles / 36 months

Powertrain

60,000 miles / 60 months

Corrosion

Unlimited miles / 60 months

Recalls

Recall Date

12-31-1969:21:35:40

Component

TIRES:BEAD

Summary

American Honda Motor Co., Inc. (Honda) is recalling certain model year 2014 Honda Civic LX vehicles manufactured November 26, 2013, through January 21, 2014. In the affected vehicles, during mounting of the tires, the tire bead may have gotten pinched between the assembly equipment and the steel wheel rims, resulting in damage to the tire.

Consequences

The tire damage could cause the tire to lose air, increasing the risk of a crash.

Remedy

Honda will notify owners, and dealers will inspect and replace any damaged tire, free of charge. The recall began on April 15, 2014. Owners may contact Honda at 1-800-999-1009. Honda's number for this recall is JD8.